Christmas on Waikiki--Lorna/Scott, Lorna/Alex

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Scott follows up on his discussion with Pietro by looking for Lorna. Lorna doesn't want to have anything to do with the mission.



Lorna closed her notebook with a sigh and glanced out the window at the endless snowy lawn. There wasn't really anything for her to do right now and she could only plan meals so many months ahead before she was forced to consider that she was just going to get bored and scrap them anyway. Winter was wearing on her--no where to go, no job to do. No classes. No training. Nothing to do but sit in silence with her own thoughts. Restlessness had driven her out of her room and down here to this small study room but it wasn't exactly wildly exciting by any stretch of the imagination. It was stupid, of course, to still avoid the students--and the other adults--but it was easier than the nagging worry that came with being around them.

She felt the shift in the EM fields just before the doorknob twisted and the door opened. "Hi, Scott," she said to his reflection.

"Hi, Lorna," was the calm reply. Scott came over and sat down in the chair across from hers, absently raising a hand to scratch at the still healing side of his face before he lowered it again automatically with a grimace. "I had to search you out. What are you doing down here?"

She turned away from the window and smiled wryly. "Planning dinners," she said, amused with herself. "Did you need me for something or just looking to get more cider? Your brother drank the last of it so blame him."

"I actually need you for something, although that's too bad about the cider," Scott said, almost flippantly. "How would you feel about a trip to Hawaii this week?"

Lorna raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's warmer there so that's always good. And you know, I have an apartment there that I haven't seen in 5 months. So, pretty good, I'd say. What's the occasion?"

Scott took a deep breath, let it out, then took another. "I need you to be seen in town. Then I need you to call me to let me know that you've detected some odd electromagnetic disturbances."

The good humor drained from her face and she looked terrified for a moment before her expression went carefully blank. "Who am I trying to be seen by? My former comrades-in-arms? I quit, Scott. For good reason."

"And if you don't do this," Scott said, very calmly but with more than a little ruthlessness underlying the words, "you will essentially be dooming a significant number of newly emergent psis to the same sort of treatment you got."

She flinched then glared, "You know what's there, obviously. Why send me? Just take it out yourself." There would be, she already knew, an eminently reasonable response to that. There'd be a response to all of her objections. And really, it didn't matter--he'd started with the one that made all the difference.

"Because if we don't have a plausible way to discover it ourselves," Scott said patiently, "I lose my source. This source was the one that finally came through with where you and Forge were, by the way."

"And lucky for you, you just happen to have a magnetopath who lives in Hawaii part of the year to discover it for you." Lorna shook her head, "Alex isn't going to like this."

"Alex is going to have to cope," Scott said, his tone considerably less harsh than the words. "Look, Lorna, I know you don't like this. But I'm not asking you to go out on a mission. I need you to be in Hawaii for a few days, be visible out and about, and then call me. That's it."

"What's your back up plan? If I say no?" She didn't want to do this. Didn't want to go anywhere near that again or put herself in their path. The quiet boredom that she'd been enduring ten minutes ago seemed exactly what she needed right now.

"I don't have one." Scott smiled very faintly at Lorna. "Yeah, I know. Not precisely what you were wanting to hear. But we have a very tight timeframe on this. If we don't move, and move this week..." He paused, then shrugged mentally. "Magneto is building another Cerebro." She was smart enough to make the connection between that and his reference to emergent psis.

She went pale beneath the fading tan she'd acquired in Florida and turned away, one hand covering her mouth as she took a shaky breath. "Will he be there?" she asked quietly, feeling sick.

"No. And the Cerebro is not there, either. The information is."

"Okay." She sat for a moment longer then stood, grabbing her notebook and pen, her knuckles white. "I…I'll get a ticket tomorrow. Maybe I can even meet my therapist in person while I'm there." She was going to need to talk to her either way. What was she going to tell Alex? Her parents?

"Lorna," Scott said, getting up. "You're going to be fine," he said, meeting her eyes as steadily as he could. "I'll take care of the ticket. You talk to who needs talking to. And send my little brother in my direction if he protests too much, all right?"

Could he tell that she was trying very hard not to scream? Probably, Scott was a decent judge of people--had to be to be as good a leader as he was. Lorna looked away, unwilling to meet his eyes. "Just let me know when the flight is then."

"I will. And I've got information on precisely what kind of electromagnetic interference you should pick up," Scott said. "It may be the only plan, Lorna, but I've compensated with the details."

"I wouldn't expect anything less. It'll be helpful to know which field I'm supposed to be feeling. There's a lot of it out there." She glanced at him briefly. "What happens once you officially know?"

"We go in, make a mess, and incidentally destroy the computers. Then my source makes sure we get a copy of this list of kids, and we make sure they and their families are safe." Scott sighed a little. "Witness protection for some of them. Some of them will probably wind up here."

Simple. Easy. Nothing that they didn't have a detailed plan for already. Lorna took a deep breath and nodded, telling herself not to think about it. Her part would be limited and out of the way. "I have to go start dinner," she said. And walked out of the room without another word.




After dinner, Alex picks up on Lorna's unease. She tells him about Scott's request and he is about as happy about it as you'd expect.



All right, that was it. He couldn't take this anymore. Alex put down the dishes he'd cleared from the table and looked over at Lorna who was scrubbing a pot in the sink. "All right, what's going on?"

Lorna shook her head and set the pot down, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. "Let's sit down, okay? I've got something to tell you and you're not going to like it." She didn't like it herself and her stomach had been in knots since her meeting with Scott. She hadn't taken more than three bites of dinner and even that was making her feel queasy.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Alex took her hand and led the way to the couch. He sat down and pulled her down beside him, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders, as she could see she was obviously quite distressed. "Alright...what is it?" His voice was softer now as her declaration had scared him.

She chewed her lip as she tried to decide exactly how to tell him and wouldn't meet his eyes. Finally, staring down at her hands, she gave a faltering explanation. "Scott asked me to do something for him today. He…I'm going to Hawaii. Tomorrow, actually. You can't come because…it's about Magneto."

"No." was his first response and even after he blurted it out he agreed with it and shook his head. "No, I won't let you do this. It's too soon for you to be facing him again, screw whatever Scott thinks!"

She reached out and gripped his hand tightly, shaking her head, "I won't be facing him. Hopefully, I won't be facing anyone. I'm just there so that the team has an excuse to discover what's going in Hawaii and, well, they need my powers to do it. I promise, I'll be careful. I'm not going to get into uniform, I'm not going back. I just…they don't have any other way to get this done, Alex and I can't let him follow through with this plan. I just can't."

Pulling his hand from hers, he stood up and paced a bit before stopping to look at her, arms crossed over his chest. "Why? Why do they need you as bait?" He spat the last word out. "Can't Nathan or someone else's power work? Why do they need you?" Alex was still pissed as hell that his brother would ask this of her and he wasn't backing down without a good reason.

She was struggling for calm, knowing that her fear wasn't going to make this any easier for him. "Because I can feel magnetic fields and Nathan can't. And because I have a good reason to be in Hawaii." Lorna clasped her hands together to hide their trembling. "Alex, this has to be done. I wouldn't have said yes if there was any way out of it. But he's building another Cerebro."

Alex turned slightly away and closed eyes, taking a few long moments to compose himself. If he had any say in this, he'd wouldn't let her even on the same continent as that monster but if Magneto was building another Cerebro... He quietly cursed to himself before letting his shoulders slump and turning back to return to the couch, taking her trembling hands in his. "I don't like this...but when do I ever? Just....." He paused and didn't continue as he looked down at their clasped hands, not knowing what else to say except, "be careful."

"Alex…I'm sorry. I don't want to do this any more than you want me to but I have to. I can't let him hurt anyone else." Lorna swallowed hard and drew her hands away. "I don't know how long I'm going to be gone. I hope I'll be back before Sunday."

He couldn't help a small wince. Sunday. If she wasn't back..."Alright, just...be back for Christmas. I'm not going to let this go for the third year." Yeah good way not to sound desperate... Alex sighed softly and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I love you and if you have to do this...then I will support you."

"Alex…" Lorna leaned into him, sighing. "I'm sorry. I'll be home as soon as I can. I don't want to be away from you this Christmas either." It was nice to know that even when he totally disagreed--and she knew he did--that she could count on him to support her. Even if in this case she'd have welcomed him telling his brother to go to hell.